John Mellencamp is returning to Ryman Auditorium this month, but instead of taking the stage, he’ll take a seat.

The veteran roots-rocker — famed for hits including “Jack and Diane” and “Pink Houses” — will check in on the touring production of “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a song-driven stage play he created with bestselling author Stephen King and Americana super-producer T-Bone Burnett.

Mellencamp recently called The Tennessean to talk about the making of a “Southern Gothic supernatural musical of fraternal love, lust, jealousy and revenge.”

You’ve written from others’ points of view in the past, but getting to write songs for the characters in this story — was it liberating?

It is, and it’s fun. Because I’ve written a lot of John Mellencamp songs. ... We realized that my songs were the character development, and that Steve (Stephen King) had the story.

Costello and Mellencamp will perform in tribute to Burnett, who has produced projects for both artists. He also produced and contributed to the soundtrack of Bridges’ film “Crazy Heart;” the actor/musician will present Burnett with the Tony Martell Lifetime Entertainment Achievement Award.

Gill will be honored by two surprise performers, and wife Amy Grant will present him with the Frances Williams Preston Lifetime Music Industry Award. Nashville hit songwriters Tim Nichols, Brett James and Rivers Rutherford are also scheduled to perform.

The T.J. Martell Foundation funds medical research with a focus on finding cures for leukemia, cancer and AIDS.

Chris DuBois says he and his songwriting partners didn’t set out to write a campaign theme.

But “Tough People Do” became just that in the hands of country star Trace Adkins, who played it at the Republican National Convention and at a Virginia rally for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan.

The song, which DuBois wrote with Jason Matthews and Joel Shewmake after Matthews brought the title phrase to a writing session, offers a message of resilience for difficult times.

“Tough people pull themselves up by the bootstraps when they hit hard luck,” the chorus goes, “and they stay strong and they keep on fightin’ like they don’t know how to lose. Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”

“What’s interesting is, we never had any intention of this being a political song,” said DuBois, who tries to keep his politics in the middle of the road. “If anything, it’s more of an American sentiment. It’s not aimed at any particular political party. It could have just as easily been adopted by somebody on the Democratic side.”

As the presidential campaign sprints into its final days, music is its soundtrack and heartbeat, extending a tradition that runs from “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” (William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, Whig Party, 1840) through Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” (Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Democratic Party, 1992) and beyond.

Click to see a gallery of photos from John Mellencamp's Ryman concert (this image: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean).

On his acclaimed new album, No Better Than This, and again at his Ryman Auditorium concert Wednesday night, John Mellencamp showed old-school Americana to be a remarkably comfortable fit.

But as masterful as his mix of blues, folk and Sun Records rock was, some members of his audience had trouble slipping into the sound.

“‘Jack and Diane’!” a female voice called out from the balcony between songs, pleading for Mellencamp's famous hit.

“I’ll get to it, sister,” the singer playfully responded. “Now that’s the problem with a lot of women -- they’re just not patient. I’ll get to it!”

Mellencamp paced his two-hour-plus show like a three-act play, moving from a stripped-down roots-rock set to an acoustic portion to a celebratory rock finale. As a room that still looks very much like it did back in the 1940s through ’70s when it housed the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman is likely the kind of venue Mellencamp had in mind when he put this new, old-timey tour together.Continue reading →

Plant, who made his mark as the singer in Led Zeppelin and who won multiple Grammys for his Raising Sand collaboration with Alison Krauss, is among four artists in this week's Americana top five to have come to Americana from other genres. The others are Los Lobos at No. 2, John Mellencamp at No. 3 and Marty Stuart at No. 5.

With "Speaking Clock Revue," Burnett aims to bring the excitement of creating music in the studio to the stage.

"The privacy and the intimacy of the studio afford artists the freedom to create, but something thrilling happens in getting away from the machines and into the live communication of real time storytelling in the larger community," Burnett said in a release.

Tickets for the Speaking Clock Revue will go on sale at noon EST on September 27 through Ticketmaster.

After Ryan Bingham, whose “The Weary Kind” was an Academy Award-winning highlight of the Crazy Heart movie soundtrack, won the artist of the year prize, host Jim Lauderdale took the stage to perform his Robert Hunter co-write, “Patchwork River.”